27 February 2010
More than 600 union members employed by Culture Sport Glasgow have backed a call for a strike ballot over their employer's plans to introduce dramatic cuts in pay and conditions.
The impending dispute follows months of meetings with union representatives from BECTU, Unison, Unite and the GMB, who together with colleagues in UCATT and the NUJ, represent the 3000 staff employed by CSG.
Members are particularly angry that councillors who sit on the board of CSG all failed to attend the board meeting which approved the pay cuts
The mass meeting held on Thursday 25 February was resounding in its support for a campaign of industrial action to fight the proposals. Union ballots will get underway on 12 March.
Union representatives claim that management have made minimal effort to reach meaningful compromises with the joint unions.
Management's proposals include a pay freeze, payment of all overtime at single time and the removal of six public holidays as premium payment days.
In addition to these cuts, staff are expected to tolerate losses of up to £1500 per year as the opening hours of a number of CSG venues are cut; reduced opening hours will impact on the system of hours based allowances.
However, the joint unions have been successful in persuading management to remove the threat of a blanket reduction in basic hours from 37 to 35 hours for many staff. This would have seen 600 staff losing up to £2000 per year.
At the mass meeting chaired by BECTU's Scottish organiser, Paul McManus, Glasgow City councillors were accused of blatant hypocrisy over the cuts.
CSG was set up as a council-owned Trust in 2008 with a number of councillors on the board. Staff were told that the establishment of the Trust would produce instant savings of £6million in VAT payments; in addition it was argued that the Trust model would free the council department to secure millions of pounds in support from private sources.
The private investments have yet to appear and less than two years later the Council tabled a £1.7 million cut in funding to CSG.
The board of CSG responded by ratifying wide ranging cuts to its services and the draconian pay cuts it now seeks to impose on staff.
"Members are particularly angry that councillors who sit on the board of CSG all failed to attend the board meeting which approved the pay cuts prompted by the funding reduction agreed by the council committees they also sit on," explained Paul McManus.
Union members have complained of pressure from managers to sign letters “asking” them to agree to changes to their contracts.
Speaking to the mass meeting on Thursday night, Paul McManus and his fellow full-time officials made it clear that whilst everyone understood the very real financial pressures facing public services today, it was unacceptable to the joint unions that staff should be asked to lose £1.7m from the wage bill when CSG had admitted to spending £1.2m on consultants in the past 12 months.
Furthermore, none of the senior management team was facing pay cuts, councillors were taking home reputed annual earnings of £10k as board members and CSG intended to proceed with a re-branding exercise, expected to cost hundreds of thousands of pounds, less than two years after a similar project.
Members were unanimous in authorising the joint unions to serve statutory notice for a strike ballot. The unions will also launch a campaign to challenge politicians at all levels over the cuts.
CSG has had an uneasy relationship with its staff since its inception. Long running talks over pay in 2008 resulted in strike action in August and September 2008.
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